Alexis de Tocqueville showed that socialism’s errors go far beyond bad economics. But his criticisms should remind today’s advocates of markets that they must promote stronger normative cases for capitalism.
Author: Samuel Gregg (Samuel Gregg)
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Venezuela’s Agony, the Catholic Church, and a Post-Maduro Future
Although many are dissatisfied with the Vatican’s efforts to mediate Venezuela’s political crisis, Venezuela’s Catholic Church is the one institution that has retained its integrity throughout two decades of a leftist-populist tyranny. What might this mean for a post-dictatorship Venezuela?
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Putting Adam Smith Back Together
The choices underlying marketplace transactions are more complicated and less narrowly self-regarding than we often suppose. By returning to the full corpus of Adam Smith’s writings, we can escape economistic conceptions of human beings and enhance our understanding of how market economies actually work.
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The Founders’ Natural Rights Philosophy Does Not Entail Radical Autonomy
It’s an error for conservatives to see the American Founding’s emphasis on natural rights as necessarily fostering extreme individualism in contemporary America. Eighteenth-century Americans would have viewed the notion that rights could be exercised contrary to natural law as ridiculous.
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Charles de Gaulle and the Return of the Nation
In an age when supranational technocrats, utopian globalists, leftists contemptuous of patriotism, and tribal populists seem locked in relentless struggle with each other, we need individuals like Charles de Gaulle more than ever.
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Patrick Deneen and the Problem with Liberalism
Patrick Deneen poses good questions but begs others. The second installment in the Public Discourse symposium on Why Liberalism Failed.
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Trump’s Tariffs and Why America Needs a Patriotic Case for Free Trade
While the economic arguments for free trade remain compelling, the political rationale requires a long-overdue overhaul.
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How Europe’s Way of Denial Became a Way of Death
Europe’s immigration woes underscore how much of the continent is living in untruth—in lies that gradually kill.
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Alexander Hamilton: Revolutionary Conservative Lawyer
A new book illustrates how Alexander Hamilton used British legal traditions and the American judiciary to give a distinctive constitutional form to a new republic.
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Capitalism, Conservatives, and the Intellectuals: A Reply to Matthew McManus
Not only are there many forms of capitalism, but intellectuals exert great influence in determining what type of economy we embrace—for better and for worse.
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First Things and the Market Economy: A Response to R. R. Reno
More than ever, religiously informed conservatives should underscore the importance of market economies for ordered liberty.
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National Sovereignty and the Challenge of Immigration
The idea of national sovereignty is indispensable to any coherent discussion of immigration policy.
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Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization
Any defense of the West must be clear about those core commitments to reason and the reasonable God that are central to its identity.
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John Stuart Mill’s Intolerant Faith and the Religion of Liberalism
John Stuart Mill foreshadows the deeply intolerant faith and agenda of contemporary liberalism.
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Globalist Illusions and the Folly of Global Governance
Global governance projects don’t just foster unaccountable bureaucracies and rule by experts. They are increasingly corrupting the idea of human rights.
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Neil Gorsuch, Natural Law, and the Limits of Judicial Power
What does natural law say about the power of judges in constitutional systems of government?
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Michael Novak: Catholic, American Patriot, and Lover of Liberty
The life and work of Michael Novak was a witness to Christian faith and the promise of America.
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Good Money
Lasting reform of our monetary systems require serious rethinking of the state’s role vis-à-vis money.
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Shedding Light on Progressivism’s Dark Side
A new book details the progressive movement’s reliance on eugenics and race science as well as its effort to exclude the disabled, blacks, immigrants, the poor, and women from full participation in American society.
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Tocqueville and Democracy’s Fall in America
For Alexis de Tocqueville, American democracy’s passion for equality was a potentially fatal flaw—one that religion could help address. But what happens when religion also becomes preoccupied with equality?
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Markets, Catholicism, and Libertarianism
Supporting markets as the economic arrangements most likely to help promote human flourishing doesn’t necessarily mean you accept libertarian philosophical premises.
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How Christianity Created the Free Society
While many Christians have undermined human liberty, a new book of essays shows just how much of our contemporary freedom we owe to the Christian church, Christian thinkers, and Christian practice rather than liberals and liberalism.
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Regensburg, Ratzinger, and Our Crisis of Reason
Against the Age of Feelings, Joseph Ratzinger has consistently upheld the power of reason in all its fullness.
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George Washington’s Constitutional Morality
In the age of Clinton and Trump, we need the principles and ideals that animated America’s first president more than ever.
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Adam Smith, Economic Nationalism, and the Case for Free Trade
As economic nationalism enjoys a resurgence across the developed world, Adam Smith reminds us of how much we stand to lose—and not just economically.